


Box of Rocks

by PepperF



Series: Diego whump [21]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hypothermia, Whumptober 2020, he's dumb but we love him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:00:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27134911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PepperF/pseuds/PepperF
Summary: When you love someone, let them go. If they come back to you, something something something. That's (roughly) how the saying goes, Diego knows. So, he's not going to try to persuade Lila to come home to him.But sometimes a guy just wants to know if the person he loves is alive and well. And sometimes a guy has a friend who has access to the entire history of the human race. And sometimes that friend will take a look, off the record, and maybe find out where and when that person is hiding, and maybe tell the guy. And maybe sometimes he might lend the guy a means of transport to said location.These things happen.Sometimes.
Relationships: Diego Hargreeves/Lila Pitts
Series: Diego whump [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1951318
Comments: 10
Kudos: 44
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Box of Rocks

**Author's Note:**

> All my thanks to Bethany for the beta-reading (of all these fics, it's been a big ask!). Even if this one did not - *gasp!* - need ANY CORRECTIONS.

When you love someone, let them go. If they come back to you, something something something. That's (roughly) how the saying goes, Diego knows. So, he's not going to try to persuade Lila to come home to him.

But sometimes a guy just wants to know if the person he loves is alive and well. And sometimes a guy has a friend who has access to the entire history of the human race. And sometimes that friend will take a look, off the record, and maybe find out where and when that person is hiding, and maybe tell the guy. And maybe sometimes he might lend the guy a means of transport to said location.

These things happen.

Sometimes.

\---

Iceland, as everyone knows, is the one that's not as cold as Greenland. But Diego wears his warm jacket, just in case. He's not an idiot.

What Herb hadn't warned him about is that, in the latter part of the twentieth century, Iceland had experienced a series of unusually cold winters, and that in January 1981, the north-western village of Grímsstaðir was enveloped in deep snow. 

When he steps out of the slight hollow formed by his arrival, he finds himself up to his thighs in the white stuff. He'd aimed for the outside of town, so no one would see him arrive, but he can see the lights up ahead, yellow and welcoming through the cold winter night, and he's tough. He can do this.

But he kind of wishes he'd worn a hat.

It's hard making headway through the thick snow, and he can feel the cold and damp seeping through his jeans and into his boots. But it's not that far. He'd landed on the side of town where Lila had rented a cabin.

(Why Iceland? Why now? He has no clue. But it's not really important. The important thing is that she's here, so that's where he's come.)

He's pulled his collar up and wrapped his arms around the briefcase like a battering ram. Flecks of snow sting his face, and he keeps his head down as he plows forward, glancing up occasionally to make sure he's heading in the right direction. His feet are already numb, even in his good, solid boots. It doesn't feel like the lights are getting closer, but they must be.

He's feeling the chill all through him, now. He stops to readjust when he starts to get worried for his ears. It'll be okay, but the lights are still a long way off, so he hefts his jacket up over his head, and fuck now his ass is cold, but it's better. He's going to scare the crap out of Lila when he knocks on her door looking like goddamn Bigfoot.

He should've landed closer. Who'd look outside on a night like this?

He stops thinking for a while, just keeps moving forward. Iceland's the one that's not as cold.

Trips. Doesn't hurt, everything's too numb now. Fuck, where are the—shit, did the lights move? Why are they over there now?

Change course. Keep going. Lila will warm him up. Lila, Lila, Lila...

Gotta keep going.

Lila, Lila, Lila, Lila, Lila...

\---

"—therfucking goddamn shit-for-brains idiot—"

He becomes distantly aware of jolting. And someone swearing up a storm.

"—barrassment before the universe, you are a black hole of stupidity, you are the galactic arse-crack of—"

It sounds like Lila. Man, he'd hate to be the person who'd pissed her off this much.

"—thrown you back into that padded cell when I—"

Another voice, a man's one, rumbles something incomprehensible to Diego's ears. Lila replies, and he can't make sense of that either, so he drifts...until sudden bright light stabs at his eyes, and he throws up a hand in protest.

He misjudges his aim, or his motor control, and smacks himself across the face, which brings him round a little more, enough to realize that he's being carried. As soon as he starts to struggle, though, he's immediately dropped onto something firm.

"Li—" he croaks, his voice cutting out halfway through. He blinks painfully up, eyes watering, and flinches when a man leans over him.

The man smiles, though, and speaks to him in stilted English. "Hello. What. Is. The. Year?"

The year? Well if this dude doesn't know, they're both fucked, because Diego hasn't got a clue. His lips and tongue don't seem to want to cooperate, but eventually he gets them moving. "Nint'n sixt'-three?" he hazards. The man frowns.

"No, no, something he'll know," says Lila, angrily shoving the man aside. "What's my name?"

"Lila," he sighs. Lilalilalila...

"That's right. How are you feeling?"

She wants to talk about feelings? Okay, he can do that. He's been practicing. "Love y'," he murmurs.

Lila rolls her eyes, but she looks a tiny bit less pissed. Or maybe it's just the delirium talking.

She says something that, again, his ears can't seem to untangle, and the man moves off. Lila starts pulling at his jacket, and he tries to help, but gives up when she's clearly handling it much better on her own. Once she's pulled the jacket out from underneath him and flung it away, she starts on the buttons of his jeans, and heyyyyy...

But then the strange man walks back in, so Diego tries to bat her fingers away. "Oh, stop it," she snaps.

The man drops a pile of blankets down, and then picks one up again to unfurl it alongside Diego, who is a little worried now, because this seems like the start of one of Klaus's stories, and at least buy a guy a drink first? Lila ignores the man's preparations, continuing to tug at his jeans until she's worked them down his legs and tangled them up with his boots—which she then disappears southward to tackle. 

Diego makes an executive decision that he's not dealing with all this, and lets himself drift away again. There's a pleasant warmth coming from somewhere to the side, and the air smells like burning wood, and it all becomes quite pleasant and hazy...which is when his left arm decides to remind him of its existence by means of a sharp, inescapable fizzing feeling. Diego's eyes snap open again, in time to see the man leaning over him again. He has the kind of ageless face that could be anything from a twenty-year-old who spends all his time out of doors, to a fifty-something with strong genes and a good skincare regime.

Diego gives a garbled protest as, between them, Lila and the man lift him, and deposit him on the blanket to his left. His sweater has gone, along with his jeans, he's down to an undershirt and boxers, and he's starting to shiver uncontrollably. Lila looks at the man and nods gratefully, saying something that Diego definitely does not understand.

"Wha..." he begins.

The man leans over, and pats him firmly on the forehead, making him blink. "Don't. Die," he instructs, with a friendly smile, and then turns and disappears.

After a second, Diego hears the closing of a door, and relaxes slightly. Only for his toes to start cramping. "Ow!"

"Fucking idiot," Lila snaps at him, and starts unbuttoning her shirt. Talk about mixed messages.

But he's come around enough now to have figured out what happened, and to be feeling more than a little sheepish about it. "Hey, L-lila."

She just glares at him.

"I m-missed y-you?" That's not a stammer, he wants to say, it's just the shivering he can't seem to stop.

She flings her shirt onto a couch, and begins shimmying out of her own jeans, but she keeps glaring at him so he's not getting his hopes up.

"Hey, at least you f-f-found me, r-right?"

If anything, she just looks more angry. "I didn't," she snaps. "You have my neighbor Nuka to thank for that. He thought he heard a fox rooting through his bins or something, and went out to check." Oh. "And if it wasn't minus twenty, I'd throw you right back out there! What the hell were you thinking, Diego?"

He gives this due consideration. "I w-w-wasn't?"

"Fucking right you weren't! You could have died! You want to know where Nuka found you? Ten feet from my door, Diego! Ten. Fucking. Feet!"

Well, shit. No wonder she looks pissed. "S-sorry," he says. 

She flings a blanket at his head, and he tries to cover as much of himself as he can manage, but she's already throwing another one over his lower body, so he focuses on covering his head and arms. He realizes that he's cut off from the source of heat—a fireplace?—under here, but before he can do anything about it, she drops another blanket over him, and then something bigger and softer, probably a comforter, and then pulls it all back so she can wriggle underneath it herself. 

He tugs her close, tragically more for the warmth of her skin than anything, but she swears at him and starts to push his undershirt up and off. More swearing, as she pushes down his boxers, getting them the rest of the way with her toes, and then squirms around angrily until they're entwined, head to toe, bare-ass naked, under a heap of blankets. 

And he's too cold to do anything about it, which is a fucking travesty.

She pinches his nipple, and he yelps.

"When you're better, I'm going to fucking murder you," she threatens.

He shuffles even closer to her, and she wraps her arms around him, seemingly undecided between hugging him and breaking his ribs. "It's good to see you, Lila."

"I'm going to cut off your legs at the knee, and your arms at the elbow, and leave you to bleed out." She hooks her leg around his, and manoeuvres so she's sandwiching his cold feet between both of her warm ones—first one, and then the other. "Don't think I won't do it."

He kisses her hair, damp with melted snow. "I _r-really_ missed you," he says.

(She doesn't murder him, but the next night, when he's fully recovered, she shows him the Northern Lights. They're pretty great.)

(Eventually, they make it to her bed, too, and not to brag, but that's even better.)


End file.
